More budgeting

Hi peeps. Glad you all found the tips useful from yesterday- it is something I always think about (but still need to get better at myself too).

It is that time of the week again (or maybe fortnight? I have not been that great at keeping track!) to see how the Blogger Budget challenge is going. Thanks to Laura for organising this.

So far I have been doing OK with it. I have been saving money each month towards car, holiday and general things, and have been checking my on-line account more frequently. I have been organised with Christmas presents and have bought most of them now. I was planning on making gifts too, so I have planned out which weekend I will spend making jam, spiced nuts, stollen, and decorating Christmas cakes.

I have also been resisting the call of Clinique (and deleting the emails with offers without reading them!)- I have avoided going into Boots and am working my way through all the millions of samples.

After my success of making my own almond milk I have not repeated this, but I will as it was super easy. Maybe in a week or two!

One thing I was thinking about was using things like reward cards to get the best out of your spending. I really love the Boots Advantage card, (you get points when you spend money and then each point is worth a penny to spend back), and we also do things like use Tesco’s vouchers to get cinema tickets and things. One thing we use a lot is Quidco . The website is a bit like a broker I suppose, but for example if I was looking for car insurance then I would look on Quidco, and they offer cashback if you go to the websites via quidco. Does that make sense? Anyway, it is worth signing up and if either of us need anything (like car insurance, house insurance, hotels, even places like Play have quidco on purchases) we go through them (when I remember- another target for me to work on!) and it all adds up. Every penny counts after all!

I use quite a few loyalty cards. Nectar, Boots and Waterstones are the main ones and also I often get those stamp coffee cards from Café Nero. Boots is a really good one, I agree…I will always try and go in there to buy make-up instead of House of Fraser just for the points! (Although HofF has student discount….)

The only loyalty cards I use are my yoo-moo card (nearly time for free fro-yo 🙂 and my Boots Advantage card. I have quite a lot of points because of my Clinique habit, but it comes in really useful for buying essentials like shampoo.
I’m still working my way through Clinique samples too 🙂

I love Quidco… I always open new credit cards through it and car insurance if it’s the best quote. Also, when I signed up, there was a deal on Betfair giving £50 cashback for opening an account and betting £10. I did and won the bet which was a double pay-off 🙂
Nectar’s my favourite card; I always save the points for Christmas shopping.

I knew what you meant Eleanor! I am the same- I look for the best deal- may as well. And Yes I have a nectar card too but we don’t shop at Sainsbury’s much any more. We did get our Christmas tree from argos with the points a few years ago.
Sarah- glad it is not just me addicted to Clinique! 🙂

Clinique addicted, boots advantage card lover here too. Actually, just the boots make-up counters in general. I worked at origins last winter and I have so many samples from them all that I need to use up, I just love buying new cosmetics. They always tempt you at this time of year too – ‘spend £50 and get 1000 bonus points’ I always think it’s a great deal when in actual fact I only really needed to spend £20 lol.

I don’t have any loyalty cards, but I do/did get Clinique emails. I finally gave into one that had bonus bag + free shipping a week or two ago, but then I got the emails on a daily basis. Ummm… annoying! I unsubscribed earlier this week. 🙂